This invention relates generally to modular accommodation systems for housing, schools, offices, etc., and, more particularly, to accommodation systems comprising modules which may be stacked in a variety of different configurations to provide maximum geometrical flexibility and living space.
The drastically increasing rate of population growth over the past few years coupled with a general migration of the population towards urban centers has resulted in an increased need for medium and high density housing at low cost. Currently available conventional housing of this nature has proven to be not entirely satisfactory to meet these needs for several reasons. For example, conventional housing, such as high-rise apartment houses, provide insufficient, if any, access to private outdoor living space due to their rigidized geometry. Additionally, although it is highly desirable both physically and psychologically for the interior of an apartment to have some exposure to sunlight through a window or by other means during the day, the linear nature of conventional high-rise apartments often does not permit such exposure for a substantial number of apartments. Nor has it been feasible to provide sufficient land surrounding conventional high-density dwelling structures for use as public amenity areas, such as playgrounds, parks, etc. Further, the construction of conventional high-rise type dwellings is dependent to an extent upon external factors such as weather which often delay construction thereby causing deleterious changes in construction schedules which add to the already high cost of construction.
There have been several attempts to design modular housing systems to meet medium and high density needs which seek to overcome one or more of these problems. However, such systems have not proven entirely adequate. In the main, due to the desire to provide modules amenable to mass production techniques, they offer little more geometrical flexibility with regard to the orientation of living area than do the high-rise type dwellings discussed above. They provide little additional private exterior living space relative to the conventional housing they seek to replace and, in fact, often result in a decrease in environmental quality. In general, it may be said that aside from possible improvements in the time and cost of construction, little progress has been made in alleviating the problems existing in the medium and high density housing area, either through conventional means or through modular housing systems.